


Seen and Unseen

by defieddracula



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Murder, Strong Language, Welcome to the Murder Club!, i mean welcome to the dark brotherhood tat please enjoy your stay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:49:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25493395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defieddracula/pseuds/defieddracula
Summary: Tatiana Vestalis had discovered the infamous Umbra sword purely by accident, deep in the throes of the Oblivion Crisis.  The villagers, the hound of Clavicus Vile himself, they'd all warned her about the blade and how it couldn't be owned, how it eventually warped the minds and hearts all who wielded it.  Yet she hadn't cared.  She knew she needed an edge to survive after the siege at Kvatch.But now the Crisis is over.  Without the constant fighting and bloodshed, she knows the inevitable is creeping up on her, threatening her sanity and the most basic moral tenet: cold-blooded murder is beneath her.What she doesn't know is that something more powerful than Umbra has been watching her since birth.  Waiting to draw her into its cold, loving embrace.  And now, its time has come.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	Seen and Unseen

**Author's Note:**

> Between schoolwork and personal responsibilities, I've poked around on this for some time, watching it grow from a casual drabble of a few hundred words to the several thousand-word creature it is now. I significantly expounded on it here, but it's inspired by the first time I encountered one of those friendly adventurers. I'd returned to Dzonot Cave after clearing it out, and at a distance, I thought he was another bandit and sniped him. Then came that "your killing has been observed by forces unknown" notification that triggers the Dark Brotherhood questline. Oops. May he rest in peace. 
> 
> Admittedly, I had a lot of fun marrying the whole Umbra dynamic to that accident. Especially working in all her "Umbra thoughts."
> 
> So, without further ado!

Grandmother Vestalis, her bespectacled, dagger-sharp eyes glittering, had always said nothing went unseen. Whether by thought-to-be-sleeping beggars, scheming siblings, or the gods or daedra themselves, the world had untold eyes and ears that witnessed everything. Tatiana and Antonia hadn’t believed her as children of eight; years before they learned of their family’s side business, they’d been filching their grandmother’s cinnamon cookies before supper and had never once been caught—a perfectly watertight argument to children.

As a woman of twenty-eight, long estranged from her twin and their family, Tatiana had shed the ridiculous notion that the beloved Vestalis matriarch, wife to a wealthy thief while being a successful conwoman herself, never discovered who looted her cookie jar. She’d seen them. She’d simply let them _think_ they’d gotten away with it. That didn’t mean Tatiana had grown to believe the old woman’s warning, though. The world certainly had hungry eyes and ears. But good thieves starved them all. And she’d long-since graduated from cookies and her sister’s hairbows to prized jewelry, paintings, and most notably, horses.

Still, she supposed the old adage wasn’t entirely unfounded. Eyes and ears, both well-informed and misinformed, fed gossip, which bloated the social circles of cities, villages, and boisterous roadside taverns. It highlighted the gullible, those who chronically forgot to lock their doors, who spent considerable time away from home, and which houses and shops had too many safeguards to risk. It suggested those willing to pay to acquire what wasn’t theirs and who was soft enough to be safely, _silently_ , held up in an alley. Gossip helped put food in thieves’ bellies and coin in their pockets.

The problem was that gossip required people, or at least something capable of higher thought. In the dead of summer in the godsforsaken backcountry of County Bravil, there seemed little of either. 

_Of all the places for Umbra to stir, it had to be here,_ she thought bitterly, pawing a tendril of blonde hair from her face. Riding southeast through the West Weald, she wished someone watched her now. Wished they’d jump her. Cagey, territorial hunters, highwaymen awaiting some lone, wandering idiot. Scratching the itch in her sword hand was much easier when she didn’t have to crawl into their backwater dens or sift through rumors.

She didn’t know if the compulsive need for combat had heightened after the Oblivion Crisis or if she’d simply had fewer opportunities to indulge it. As Champion of Cyrodiil, her personal wealth eclipsed any she’d known before the Oblivion Crisis; she could retire lavishly, take up some cliché hobby, and live happily ever after in history like the heroes of the stories she’d thrived on as a little girl. She’d tried, too. Afflicted with more free time and gold than she knew what to do with, she bought Anvil’s infamous Benirus Manor, cleansed its curse—out of necessity more than boredom or selflessness—and renovated it. She wandered the port town for a few months, eradicating a local gang and indulging in its endless waves of fresh seafood and luxury goods, only to realize how much she despised sunburn, seagulls, and stepping on sharp seashells.

Also that she’d lose her mind if she suffered through another week of peace. 

She turned her destrier left at fork in the trail and forged deeper into the woods, her hand quivering on Umbra’s grip. No matter how long or hard she exercised, no matter how long she meditated or read, restless energy buzzed in her extremities, tensing her limbs for fights that rarely came. She’d lost count of how often she’d lain awake, her vacant, exhausted gaze glued to the black blade hanging on the wall. Sometimes, she could only sleep with it beside her. 

Everyone in Pell’s Gate had warned her about Umbra when she wandered into the village at the dawn of the Crisis, trading for supplies. Even Barbas, hound of the daedric lord Clavicus Vile, had called it “bad business.” She was different though, she’d thought as she snatched it from its previous owner’s corpse. Nothing owned her, and she desperately needed an edge if she was to shoulder the burden plopped unceremoniously into her hands, if she wanted to save herself, Martin, and all the others. 

How good her intentions had been. But how _wrong_ she’d been. How stupid and vain. 

If only she’d heeded the warnings. Once the bloodlust, contentment, and amiability faded after a kill, paranoia self-loathing haunted her like the ghosts she’d banished from her manor. She despised her own greed, vanity, and her spinelessness for bending to them. The notion of someone stealing Umbra shadowed her every thought and action. Then, as sharp as whiplash, the bloodlust struck again. Disposing of the sword was her only chance of remedy. She knew that deep in her bones. Her blood.

Yet she couldn’t let it go. Barbas had urged her not to take it to his lord’s shrine, but she wouldn’t have done that anyway; she’d made no pact with the Prince and had no intentions of associating with Him. If He wanted the damned thing so badly, He had all the power to take it. He’d be doing her a favor. 

Seeking help from priests or mages was out of the question. No one would keep _her_ secrets. What would happen if the world discovered their beloved Champion, an incorruptible force for good and a beacon of redemption, had been led astray by same forces she’d mercilessly campaigned against? Gods, she’d sooner eat her horse than let that one out of the bag—and dear Gideon had been _very_ expensive. She’d figure things out on her own. If not, something would eventually kill her as she’d killed the last Umbra, the sword having discovered someone worthier in the wings.

But until then, she had to keep hunting. Sifting good gossip from the bad. 

As the blazing sun approached its zenith, she trotted through an open gate and up an annoyingly straight cart path to an annoyingly quaint farm hewn out of the forest’s oaks, alders, and pines. A stream branched off the broad creek she’d been following and babbled along three sides of the property; a small mill, complete with a waterwheel, straddled it. The southern field teemed with apple trees and vegetables, corn, and wheat, while sheep, a few cows, and two spotted horses grazed in the partially wooded eastern pasture. Chickens bustled about the coop abutting the barn. The house, perched atop a low-lying knoll, was a simple two-story affair skirted by flowerbeds overflowing with daisies, brilliant blue cornflowers, and rosy phlox. Tatiana halted Gideon at the foot of the hill, unable to help but smile. For now, at least, she could still enjoy life’s little things.

“You shouldn’t be here. I’ll call the dog,” came a child’s voice, all quavering bravado. 

Twisting in the saddle, she discovered a snub-nosed boy staring at her. She guessed he was ten, twelve at most. His lips were stained purple from berries he was undoubtedly supposed to be harvesting rather than eating. He wore nondescript homespun trousers and a sweated-through shirt, his moccasins so faded and stained that Tatiana couldn’t begin to imagine their original color. Dark curls peeked out from beneath his straw hat, sweat plastering some to his temples. He wielded a pitchfork as tall as he was. His spindly arms shivered with effort or fear. Probably both. 

He deserved credit though, she thought. He’d been brave enough and quiet enough to sneak up on her. At his age, she’d have hidden in a barrel and tried not to cry.

“Peace, son. Put that down. I’m not here to hurt anyone or steal your livestock,” she said gently. “Where’re your parents?”

He hesitated, glancing inadvertently at the mill. Tatiana noticed, but waited for his answer anyway, hoping to steady him, give him a sense of control. Gideon, his ears swiveled back toward the boy, had frequently showcased his war-training in the chaotic year and a half that she’d owned him, but all a destrier’s kicks, bites, and evasive maneuvers were useless against silent attacks from its rear blind spot. She knew the damage pitchforks could inflict. Having her intestines inside her was nice. So was not needing to harm a child to keep them there.

Out of caution, she turned Gideon around and eased back the reins to quash his anticipation of a charge. The gelding watched the boy through ice-blue eyes, nostrils flaring.

The boy licked his lips nervously. “Pr-promise not to hurt them?”

“What’s your name?”

He did his best to steady his shaky grip on the pitchfork. “Marcius.”

Tatiana touched her heart then pointed skyward. “Well, Marcius, I _swear_ not to hurt them. If I do, may Akatosh strike me down and damn me to Oblivion.” 

At that, he stood a little straighter, resting the pitchfork tines on the ground. He nodded at the mill. “Down there.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling and reining Gideon toward it.

“But you shouldn’t _be_ here,” he repeated lamely, raising the pitchfork again. “Papa will be angry.” 

Gideon snorted and swished his tail as if to mock him. She looked back again, wanting to snidely point out that the property’s front gate had been wide open, but for all she knew, he’d get the belt for telling her where they were. “Could you ask him to meet me here, then? I just need a few moments of his time.”

He hesitated again, but ultimately nodded. Giving her a wide berth and keeping the business end of the pitchfork between them until he was behind them, he hurried off. Moments later, the mill’s door banged open and a bearded man, built like a bull and dressed for field work, tromped out with a redheaded woman in tow. He carried the pitchfork one-handed. His wife toted a sharp shovel; the scowl twisting her freckled face could’ve soured milk. Marcius shadowed them, picking his fingernails in a pathetic attempt to disguise the rock in his hands.

 _What a charming family_ , Tatiana thought dryly. She tilted her chin up and smiled. “Fine day.” 

“We’ve already paid our taxes,” the man snapped, his glare daring her to claim otherwise.

 _So much for that Colovian hospitality_. Not that she blamed them. She wasn’t exactly dressed for afternoon tea. Hooded, she sported black armor of reinforced leather and featherlight mail. Short spikes prickled the outsides of her bracers and rerebracers to deter grappling and animal bites. Subtle floral tooling swirled across the shoulders and down the back. Each piece was imbued with frost salts to keep her cool on these sweltering summer days; she had an identical set imbued with fire salts for winter months and mountain treks, as well as one without any enchantments. The ensembles were some of her most expensive possessions, but she felt them worth every septim; the armorer and university mage needed the money far more than she did, anyway.

Her bow, baldric of throwing knives, and Umbra, sheathed at her hip, didn’t soften her image. Neither did Gideon, a black-as-sin charger who looked big enough and mean enough to eat a tax collector’s nag. 

Twigs snapped behind her. Her attention whipped over her shoulder to see three more children freeze in their attempt to hide amongst the blueberry bushes. All were younger than the first but just as shabbily dressed. The youngest, a girl of no more than six with auburn pigtails, swatted the elbow of the brother that stepped on the branchlet, who then looked sheepishly at his twin for support. The other boy just fidgeted with the antler toggles on his vest. 

Tatiana raised her empty hands up to her shoulders. “I’m not here to collect taxes or steal anything,” she said, looking back to the farmer.

“Papa says that’s the same thing,” the girl quipped, only to duck behind her brothers when her parents glared at her.

Tatiana barely hid her smirk. _What an adorable little snake_. 

“I don’t care what you’re here for. State your piece and _get_. Unlike you city-dwellers, we’ve work to do,” the man snapped. 

Tatiana paradoxically loved and loathed her fame, but no matter how she saw it at a given time, she knew time would erode it as it did all things, and she resolved to exploit its perks—like scything through hostilities and snatching market discounts she certainly didn’t need—for as long as she could. So she pushed her hood back to reveal the trademark crook in her nose and the scar hooking down her temple and brow. 

Recognition smacked the farmers like a well-thrown brick. The man’s eyebrows practically flew into his sweaty curls, and he nearly dropped the pitchfork. His wife’s hostility morphed into the wide-eyed, universal expression of “Oh, shit,” and she scurried for the house, presumably to scrounge up food and drink for Tatiana.

Which Tatiana had no intentions of accepting. “Ma’am, don’t trouble yourself, please. I’ve more than enough supplies,” she said and patted one of her saddlebags. The woman halted so abruptly that dust kicked up behind her heels. Her face flushed as red as her hair, but she nodded and returned to her husband, smoothing her skirts.

“Forgive us, Champion,” the farmer said, his voice almost fatherly now. “We didn’t know it was you.”

Tatiana raised her hood. “Then brigands probably won’t either. Have there been any around here? Things seem quieter than when I last rode through.” Dismissively, she flicked her wrist eastward. “Bravil didn’t offer much beyond ghost stories and Skooma, and I don’t care about either.” 

The man spat. “’S about all that hole is good for.” He paused briefly and scratched his chin. “I was up at the Ill Omen a few days back—the old inn an hour or so north of here?—selling some of the month’s surplus. There was a band drinking and supping there. Some Khajiit and a huge Nord. I’ve never seen Manheim never look so jumpy.” He patted his son’s shoulder. “Me and the boy quickly finished business and cut through the woods to get back home.” 

“Wise choice. Can you tell me anything else? How many?”

“Nine, I think. They looked right comfortable, so I doubt any were stabling horses, if they had any.”

Her heart began to pound. Umbra’s silent call rang in her like a tuning fork, making Gideon paw the dirt as it always did. “Any idea where they might be headed?”

With a heavy shrug, he sighed. “One mentioned a camp in Dzonot Cave. I’m not sure whereabouts that is, I fear. That’s all I know, Champion. Manheim called them mercenaries, but I reckon that was just to keep them calm, you know? He could probably tell you more if you look him up. He makes a mean potato stew, too.”

“No need. I know the place,” she said. Potato stew was one of the last things she cared about right now. “Should anyone ask, I wasn’t here.” The farmers touched their fists to their hearts in assent.

As she pivoted Gideon, she noticed the faded ribbons woven into the little girl’s braids. She motioned her forward. “Come here a moment. Don’t worry, Gid’s all bark and no bite,” she lied. The girl looked to her parents—for permission or surety, Tatiana couldn’t say—and once they nodded, she edged out of the bushes. She’d be beautiful one day, Tatiana thought as she dug into the saddlebag holding her town clothes, with or without the City’s gowns and fine jewelry. For the girl’s sake, Tatiana hoped she never left the farm.

“I’ve had this a long time, but it’ll look far lovelier on you,” she said, leaning down to hand her a roll of green velvet ribbon, delicately embroidered with gold scrollwork. The girl gasped. “And this is for all of you.” Then, she dropped a lambskin purse into the child’s outstretched hand. It clinked audibly. It bulged with a few hundred gold septims—plenty enough to carry the family and their animals through the next year. Before anyone could protest, she spurred Gideon into a brisk canter and was gone, leaving behind a cloud of dust and disbelief.

When Tatiana reached the western shores of Lake Rumare, purple and pink still teased the bellies of the ominous clouds rallying in the southwest. Stars glittered above her, but the chilly, fitful breeze vowed rain. 

“Maybe I won’t have to spend so long washing in a creek, eh boy?” she whispered as she tethered Gideon in a dense copse downwind of the cave. She kissed his forelock and slunk toward the cave, avoiding the sandy dirt along the water’s edge. She didn’t worry about anyone rustling him. He’d brutalize any sod attempting to lead or mount him. 

Dzonot Cave was notorious for sheltering lowlifes and fugitives, from Skooma addicts and rusty-edged vagrants to professional smugglers and killers. Those ignorant of its reputation thought it was just an unassuming hole bored into the hills skirting the lake. Of all the times she’d ridden to and from the City, especially as a child in her family’s coach, she’d scarcely noticed the place’s rudimentary door. While running with the Thieves’ Guild as a young adult, she’d have rather stripped naked and kicked a hornet nest than plunder it, knowing her swordsmanship had been fair on a _good_ day and her leathers designed purely for stealth.

Circumstances never really changed, she mused, noting the deep bootprints and ruts churning up the sandy soil. People sure did, though.

Easing the door open, she winced at the brief wail of the hinges. Tugging her black neckerchief over her nose, she ducked into the gloom.

Damp, chilly air knifed through the seams in her armor and bled through the cotton gambeson beneath. She drew a silver ring from her pocket and slipped it on her middle finger. Her eyes stung as if she’d splashed soapy water in them, but the feeling ceased, casting the cavern in vibrant blues. Every detail was crisp, clear, and bright as a summer’s day, from the stringy lichen clinging to the walls to the wavy striations in the rocks beneath them. Springs dribbled through cracks in the walls and ceiling. Mushrooms sprang up here and there. 

She drew Umbra. The whisper of steel on leather sent delightful shivers up her spine.

The entrance tunnel leveled out before rising steeply and curling into various chambers boasting dramatic rock formations, from delicate wine straws resembling curtains of hair hanging from the ceiling, to carpets of popcorn-looking deposits and fang-like stalagmites and stalactites. Despite the circumstances, Tatiana paused to take in the vastness of one such cavern. She exhaled softly in wonder. Like the rest of the system, rippled flowstone was everywhere. Irregular mounds of the stuff, some easily twice her height, distorted the floor beneath the walls, deposited over millennia by the mineral-rich springs still flowing down the domed ceiling to pool where there had once been dips in the floor. She made a mental note to return and more closely examine everything after her head cleared. Divines willing _,_ she’d actually remember this time.

Sniffing, she paused at the lone tunnel across the room. Smoke and the scent of roasted meat traveled on a steady draft, but without the accompanying conversation or drinking songs she’d expected. There was no scraping or pounding of metal on stone as armor was mended or weapons were readied for raiding. Only the trickle of water and the distant squeaks and pitter-patter of tiny rat paws disturbed the silence. Odd. No one would’ve left food _and_ fire behind. Cave rats should still be hiding. Or dead.

That wasn’t even the most significant smell. Stronger than the smoke was an undercurrent that reminded her of battlefields and Oblivion gates. The stench of lamp oil and the coppery tang of blood.

Chewing her lip, she glanced across the yawning room behind her. Instincts, muffled beneath Umbra’s influence, insisted she leave. When she last ignored them, she’d been arrested by an Imperial Battlemage, interrogated by Captain Lex and his lackeys, then hurled into the Imperial Prison after refusing to betray those who’d betrayed her. She’d almost starved there because she’d been so hellbent on finishing the job and retrieving a meager pouch of gold. This could end similarly, couldn’t it? 

_Certainly not_ , she thought defiantly. The fires of time, experience, and Oblivion itself had tempered her, reshaped her from the ashes of the talented, albeit common thief she’d been when she stumbled into her twin’s trap on that dark autumn night two and a half years ago. Since then, she’d slain countless men, mer, and animals. Daedra and undead. 

_Antonia’s too smart to toy with you now. Even if she wasn’t, Umbra’s delivered you from far worse than a battlemage and a few soldiers_ , she told herself, squeezing Umbra’s grip until her fingers ached. _It’ll save you from whatever’s here, too._

She pressed on.

The next chamber was of moderate size. She scarcely noticed its rock formations. To the right lay a toppled lantern, the glass frame shattered, flame guttering, and reservoir nearly empty. Two khajiit lay before a forest of stalagmites. Blood pooled around them like liquid sapphire and ran in rivulets across the uneven ground. She crouched beside them. The first lay face-down, the back of his cuirass bashed in by a maul. His head, still in its helmet, had been crushed like a grape presumably by the same weapon. The second bandit was shorter, slighter, and bore similar wounds, though she hadn’t been taken by surprise. The blow to her torso was from the front. Both were barefoot. Both had empty pockets and purses. 

Tatiana hissed a curse and kicked one of the corpses. Hardly feeling the pang shooting through her foot, she followed the smoke out of spite, now consumed by the idea of cornering whoever had beaten her here. Notes of blood, ale, and pungent spices drifted with it.

A narrow tunnel led her into a vast, semi-rectangular cavern bisected by a chasm. The far side held the remnants of a ruined campsite. She scurried over the rickety bridge. Cutlery, tin plates, and bottles littered the area. Disheveled bedrolls loosely encircled a firepit, over which two fat, half-cooked rats hung on a spit. Coals glowed feebly amongst the ashes. 

Six unarmored bodies were strewn about. Four had been bludgeoned to death. Two bore sword wounds. Their weapons and armor, clearly not having been used or worn during the attack, were missing. Their coin purses were unsurprisingly gone, too. The largest body lay supine by the firepit—the Nord the farmer mentioned, by his pallor and intricately braided beard—with a rusty morningstar embedded in the pulp of what had once been his face.

In places, the floor bore light scratches where chests and crates had been dragged away. She rifled through the handful of those remaining on the camp’s fringes; all were empty. The rest had rotted long before she or the brigands and their mystery assailants had arrived, now little more than heaps of midnight-blue _stuff_ spiked with bent, rusty nails. 

Parallels to her sister’s trap burned like acid in her brain. Back in the dilapidated, godsforsaken shed in that dilapidated, godsforsaken homestead, she’d found only empty crates and barrels, too. Smoke had led her to the place. A storm had loomed. What next? Would the smoke disappear and a battlemage ambush her? She looked up, jaw clenched. 

Lazy currents in the pall of smoke revealed an opening behind flowstone encrusted with pebble-like mineral deposits. They led her up a steep, winding passage and through a bashed-in door. Smoke obscured the high ceiling enough that she wondered if she stood beneath any loose rocks, but was livable at nose-level. She swallowed a reflexive cough.

A rockfall dominated the right half of the chamber, cloaked in spindly lichen. Another body—the ninth and final one, by the farmer’s count—lay near the rubble, stripped save for its sundered glass cuirass. Tatiana hardly noticed either, fixated on the light radiating around the bend up ahead. 

Someone cleared their throat. Spat. Crispy skin crackled as they tore meat from bone. ~~~~

She stuffed her ring in her pocket and waited just long enough for her vision to adjust before approaching, oblivious to the blood worming across the floor.

The sparse remnants of a suckling pig hung over the fire. On a camp stool slouched an orc in burnished dwarven armor. Two tiny rings glittered on his left ear. Cracks split a massive dent in his right pauldron. His gauntlets, gorget, and helm lay at his feet, and his bloody maul, easily as large as a bloated toddler, rested against the fragments of a crate to his left. It glittered with a silvery frost enchantment. Two sturdy chests waited behind him, their banding and padlocks gleaming. Beckoning to her even through Umbra’s silent noise. 

He looked up from the pork haunch in his hands as Tatiana appeared. She expected him to leap up and attack. Instead, he grinned, sweat and fat dribbling down his tusks and bruise-green chin. “Hail, fellow adventurer!” he called. “Come, come! You’ll find only safety and rest around my fire.”

 _Of all the bloody times I meet someone friendly._ Anger roiling in her gut, she sheathed Umbra. In any case, he’d gotten here first, and any loot was rightfully his. Fair was fucking fair. Tatiana had no qualms with cheating, theft, and self-defense, but she wouldn’t stoop to cold-blooded murder over a few shiny baubles or Umbra’s insistence. Cyrodiil was rife with bandits. She’d find more. She could always find more. 

She didn’t lower her kerchief as she studied him through the haze. “Such generosity in such ugly times. Thank you.” 

“The Oblivion Crisis is ended, thanks to your empire’s Champion. Times could be far worse.”

 _At least he doesn’t recognize me,_ she thought. Nodding, she brushed a village of brittle lichens off a rock and sat down. “I hope you don’t mind the bandana. Can’t stand smoke.”

He chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “I know bad people. Killed lots of them here tonight!” As he laughed, a tendril of gristle dangled perilously alongside his tusk like a gooey, translucent worm. Tatiana cringed inwardly. “You become a good judge of these things when you’ve hunted riches as long and successfully as I have. You?” He pointed the leg at her, then tore off another chunk. “My gut says you aren’t one of the bad ones.”

Shielded in anonymity, that felt like the most genuine compliment Tatiana had received since she broke the siege at Kvatch. She hunched forward, hands clasped and elbows on her knees. She didn’t see any swords near him, but decided to play dumb. Where were his companions? “So, you killed them all?”

He scoffed—or maybe cleared gristle from his throat. “I have killed cows with more talent than these fools. Only their leader posed any real challenge,” he said, amber eyes twinkling. “However, I was not alone. My kin are transporting our heavier spoils to camp.”

“Why bother hauling it out of here before the market opens? Unless they aren’t orcs or you know a master smith, I doubt their gear will fit any of you. No offense.” 

“None taken. We did not come to Cyrodiil for personal gain. We seek riches for tribute to Gortwog. This land offers much treasure to those who don’t mind sullying their hands. You clearly did not come to study the cave features.”

“Well, I would have if I hadn’t left my hand lens at home,” she sighed with theatric regret. She ignored the rest, partly because of the worsening itch in her sword hand, partly because she neither knew nor cared who in Oblivion Gortwog was. She snuck a glance at his damaged pauldron. “You were too injured to join them, I take it? Pretty rocks or no, this isn’t the first place I’d choose to have supper.”

The orc’s expression blackened. His voice lowered, for the first time nearing anything remotely dangerous. “Aye. The footing here is perilous. Their leader took advantage landed a blow when I slipped, rendering me useless in transporting our take. Had I been alone, I would have died. I was waiting for my tincture heal me before meeting them at Weye.” His grin and lighthearted tone returned with disturbing swiftness as he gestured to the pig. “Then I realized it would have been shameful to waste this. Help yourself, if you wish.”

Tatiana shook her head and massaged the ball of her thumb to busy her hands. Little more than table scraps remained. She hated pork anyway. 

He resumed eating without comment. Why he so readily trusted her, she couldn’t understand. How could he so readily believe she, armed to the teeth, hooded, and half-masked, was “one of the good ones?” She’d never shared campfires with warm-hearted strangers even before the Crisis—partly because she’d met so few warm-hearted strangers in the wilderness— but even if she had, she’d never let her guard down with them.

_~ he’s an idiot, that’s why. if you don’t kill him, someone else will ~_

Tatiana rubbed her thumb harder. She’d hoped to have found an excuse to leave before the voice returned. It was her warm alto, yet not hers, carrying a hoarse, faintly metallic quality, like an echo trapped in a walk-in safe. Battle-worn and stomach full, the orc still looked like he could wrestle a bull into submission. Surely, he could cleave her in two or tear off her head with his bare hands. 

_~ first, he must catch you. which he won’t. you didn’t eat a whole piglet and you’re half his size. he said they took the bigger prizes. that means the smaller, more valuable ones are still here. they’re probably in those chests back there. you know what to do ~_

Now, her hand _actually_ ached. Theft, fine. Theft had kept her alive during her Thieves’ Guild training. Theft had built the Vestalis fortune four generations ago. But murder? She readily killed in self-defense and to protect others, but she’d never aspired to become an assassin or cutthroat. Murder was messy. A tool for impatient, mediocre cutpurses and fiends. Assassination simply wasn’t her calling. Just as canvases and paint pots called some, while the anvil and roaring forge called others. She’d been called to…well, with the Crisis over and her former life in tatters, it felt like the only calling she had was Gideon snorting for his evening grain.

Recalling that loss, how high she’d risen and how low she’d felt every inch of the climb, incensed her. The orc’s noisome chewing frayed her suddenly threadbare nerves, each ripping of flesh and smacking of lips sounding, _feeling_ , more and more like an insect skittering along the inside of her skull. 

_~ how is killing him any different than killing a spider? ~_

She glanced up through her lashes, blind to the purple fog clouding her peripheral vision. His head and throat were fully exposed.

Yet she couldn’t just lunge at him if she wanted to live, Umbra or no. To best someone of his size and strength, she needed speed or stealth. The latter, she’d already forsaken. The environment quashed the former; millennia of ebbing and flowing water had buffed the ground, sculpted it so that much of it resembled a rug with shoes stuffed under it. Teal scum coated the chamber’s wet areas, accenting springs she otherwise wouldn’t have noticed. 

_~ really, tat, you’ve killed so much worse than him and in equally dangerous footing. what about all the bandits, animals, and daedra? ~_

Only, the orc wasn’t any of those things. He was a stupidly magnanimous adventurer. He’d offered her food and promised her safety when he could’ve attacked her on sight. Gods, his crude table manners were his only crime. 

_~ his kindness is a façade. As soon as you turn away, you’ll end up just like the others. then he’ll take Umbra and your knives and your bow…everything ~_

Tatiana shut her eyes, feeling like her mouth and throat were coated in coarse sand. She _could_ kill the orc. Being able to kill him didn’t mean she _should_. Debating the voice, trying to remind herself that she was above murder, was as effective as bailing out a sinking galleon with a pail.

“And yourself?”

She looked up. Did she imagine it, or had the smoke thickened? She couldn’t recall anything the bastard had said since he offered her food. She forced a laugh. “Sorry? Spent too many nights on the road lately.”

He waved it off. “Ah, a feeling I know all too well! The Wawnet Inn, just over at Weye, is a sound establishment. I asked from where do you hail?”

The old lie came as easily as a desert sunrise. “Chorrol, originally, but, my father eventually took a Legion Captain’s post up in Skyrim. We lived in Solitude until a couple of years ago,” she said. She snorted for good measure. “Not soon enough for me. Everything reeked of smoke or ale, and I don’t hold my liquor well. So, you can imagine how well I fit in with Nords.”

“Skyrim’s barrows and abandoned forts still teem with riches. There are worse places for people like us,” he pointed out. 

“Like Blackmarsh, from what I hear.”

“Indeed! Skyrim freezes your feet off, and Blackmarsh rots them off. I would have guessed you were one of High Rock’s Bretons, as you are short. I mean no offense, of course!” 

_Some taken_. She shrugged. 

With a belch mighty enough to shatter a stein, he stood, rolled his shoulder experimentally, and started for a side passage near the huge cauliflower-like mounds of flowstone behind Tatiana. “Well, in any case, _I_ hold my ale quite well until it gets past my stomach,” he laughed. “I shall return momentarily.”

Tatiana nodded, loosening, then tightening, her bracers’ laces as he passed. It didn’t even occur to her to check the chests he’d left unguarded.

_~ the maul is there he left his maul look ~_

His footsteps echoed like thunder in a bottle, and time slowed to a crawl. The chests, the cavern’s rippled, smoke-hazed walls and ceiling, her gloved hands, everything slipped in and out of focus, smearing the swaying shadows into the fire’s gold and orange like ink bleeding across a watercolor palette. The metallic parody of her voice counted off his steps in her head.

_~ ...fourteen, fifteen sixteen… ~_

He’d turned the corner. It seemed impossible, yet she _felt_ him moving, like one feels an unseen spirit drift through a darkened room. Fingers curling around Umbra’s hilt, she followed him, as silent and sure as death.

_~…twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four…_

He stopped at thirty-six paces. The jingle of shifting mail teased her more than the music of pilfered jewels and clinking coins.

~ _this is your chance ~_

The same possessing force that had driven her roughshod through Oblivion gates, bandit holds, and beast lairs, swallowed her. The abrupt shift felt like plunging beneath a wave after hours of treading water, dreadful, yet relieving, full of familiarity and a cold certainty that flooded every void in her heart. ~~~~

Umbra was silent as she drew it. Unholy purple light shimmered within the blackened steel, giving it the appearance of smoky amethyst.

Down the tunnel, the orc whistled a lively, off-key march. The walls were close and the floor uneven. Arrows or throwing knives were the safest options. She knew that distantly. But Umbra hungered. It had never failed her. It would _never_ fail her.

She readied for a two-handed strike; the grip fit her small hands as if custom made, its pebbled leather as comfortable as when she fought one-handed.

_~ now dammit now ~_

Tatiana clenched her teeth. Swinging in a diagonal overhead arc, she slammed Umbra into the gap between the orc’s neck and cuirass, cutting to the bone. Arterial blood splashed the wall and ceiling; some splattered her face, hot and sticky. His knees crumpled like parchment as he scrabbled at his neck, protests she neither understood nor cared about drowned by the blood bubbling from his mouth. She planted her boot on his back and wrenched Umbra free with mechanical efficiency. He pitched to the floor. The bloody spray diminished to a steady stream and pooled around her boots. Purple mist radiated from the corpse; Umbra’s glow shimmered and intensified as it absorbed it, dazzling her. Pleasurable shivers raced up her arms and down her spine. Her breath caught in her throat. 

The voice returned, frenzied and hoarse. 

_~ remember the xivilai that left your nose like it did just imagine whatthis brute wouldhavedone ~_

Memories of searing pain and the lingering black eyes practically scalded her, and she forgot she’d refused the healer who’d offered to mend her then-broken nose, that pride and stubbornness dissuaded her from having it reshaped now. Venting that irrational rage, she hacked at the orc’s mangled neck until his head finally rolled aside. Each catch of the blade on his armor or vertebrae jarred her to the shoulder, steel on stone and bone clanging discordantly around her.

Then the mist dissipated. The light waned. 

The tingling in her hands abated. Her vision cleared. Fatigue rolled in behind the receding adrenaline and left her limbs feeling like stalks of wet straw. The bloodlust evaporated. Her mind was blissfully empty, the crackle of the fire and dribbling springs no longer grating against her ears. Yet as they always did, the hollow remnants of spent need and the nameless promise, the _fear_ , that that need would return prowled the edges of her conscience. Waiting for the afterglow of victory to subside.

_~ he’s as much a brigand as the others. search him. fair is fucking fair. ~_

She couldn’t argue now, especially since the voice had calmed and become nearly indistinguishable from her own. The search returned a handful of septims and a simple amulet featuring a mottled chunk of obsidian. She plucked the earrings from his ear. Hardly a fortune, but he didn’t need them now. Waste not.

Still panting lightly, she returned to the ringleader’s chamber. She caught herself moving to swipe the back of her hand over her mouth. As much blood dripped from her arms as from her kerchief. She stripped it off, spat for good measure, and tossed it into the fire. She sheathed Umbra. She’d stopped cleaning it halfway through the Crisis, for the steel seemed to repel blood as beeswax repelled water. Or maybe it absorbed its victims’ blood as well as their souls. It wasn’t a detail that concerned her under its influence.

Tatiana scaled the small rise where the chests waited. As she knelt to pick the locks, impossibly chilly, damp air rolled over her and lifted the hairs on the nape of her neck, making the blood on her face feel like it had frozen. Gooseflesh peppered her arms and legs. The sense of being watched coiled around her stomach like a slimy eel. Her hand jerking to Umbra’s hilt, she peered over her shoulder, eyes and ears straining for hints of movement in the darkness beyond the fire. 

Stillness and silence greeted her. Just stillness and silence. 

_The draft’s picked up. That’s all_ , she thought, acutely aware that she’d told herself something similar just before her sister’s ambush. Her teenage fear of Nocturnal’s wrath tugged her collar. Fear, family tradition, and a self-imposed obligation to honor her birth sign had impelled Tatiana to pray to Her back then, not genuine faith. As she’d feared her empty devotion had landed her in prison, she now, albeit briefly, feared that utterly abandoning it had backfired at last. Purely out of spite, Tatiana resisted the compulsion to plead for Her help. She hadn’t protected her then. She wouldn’t protect her now. Or ever. 

So she waited, statue-still. She didn’t know how long she crouched there, legs and lower back burning and her attention twitching around like that of a nervous cat, but she neither saw, nor heard anything but the popping fire and the trickle of water. The feeling faded with concerning, yet relieving swiftness.

 _You’re getting your smalls in a bunch over nothing,_ she admonished herself, swallowing against the knot in her throat. She wiped her bloody arms and hands on the outside of her cloak, then picked the chests’ locks. She opened each slowly, ever-wary of traps and contact poison. Convinced they were safe, she tucked her gloves into her belt. The last thing she needed was to dirty anything valuable _._

Inside were two daggers with emeralds set into their pommels, several rings and necklaces, and a pouch stuffed with gems. Some of the stones were still rough and caked in dirt. Others were finely cut and polished.

A pair of thigh-high riding boots, wrapped in waxed canvas and adorned with elegant tooling, occupied the larger chest. The name _Soranus_ , a luxury shoemaker out of Skingrad, was stamped into the soles. Amazingly, they looked her size. She despised the thought of such things being cast down as tribute to some warlord or deity or whatever. Such craftsmanship deserved appreciation and use and care—to be _seen_. Tatiana carefully rewrapped them and tucked them under her arm. She stuffed the jewelry into the gem pouch, hitched it and the daggers to her sword belt, then left the cave.

The songs of crickets and cicadas welcomed her into the night. She relished the clean air, only to cough involuntarily as she exhaled. From the small case on her belt, she drew a leather-bound vial and tipped its contents into her mouth. She briefly held the oily stuff under her tongue before swallowing, stifling a shudder at its grassy aftertaste, but sighing in relief as the irritation in her lungs began to subside. _Gods_ , she hated smoke. 

Padding to the water, she washed away the dried blood tugging at the skin of her forehead, cheeks, and neck. Thunder drew her attention skyward; the clouds she’d seen earlier now smothered the heavens. Lightning flashed white and vicious purple. As if burned, she jolted back from the water. The hasty rinse would have to do for now. At this point, it wouldn’t surprise her if Fate had scratched “get struck by lightning” into her future, and she wasn’t about to test the idea.

Gideon waited dutifully amongst the trees. He pinned his ears as she edged through the brush, but calmed when a lull in the wind carried her scent to him. She stuffed her most soiled garments—the bracers, rerebraces, gloves, and cloak—into a saddlebag. She plucked her rain cloak from another, swung it around her shoulders, and fastened the buckles down to her stomach. Rain or no rain, she didn’t want to alarm anyone on the way to the old trapper’s shack she stayed in when visiting the area. Given her reputation for adventuring, she could get away with riding bloody. That didn’t mean she _wanted_ to. Pride and thieves’ habits and all. She drew enough unwanted attention as it was. 

She led Gideon from the trees, climbed into the saddle, and rode off, the chilly wind chasing her down the road.

Four orcs crowded the porch of the inn at Weye, a banal hamlet clinging to the outer fringes of the City limits. Armed, but wearing sturdy traveling clothes, each nursed a tankard of ale and eyed the roiling clouds. By their size and matching earrings, she knew they were the adventurer’s band. 

“Hail, gentle traveler!” one of them called. He half-rose from their table to flag her down.

Gideon chewed his bit as Tatiana slowed him to a measured walk. She knew she should just wave and press on, if only to beat the rain on the short gallop to the shack. But a twisted sense of irony dampened that perfectly sensible idea, begging to be indulged.

_~ it’d be rude to just ignore them, don’t you think? ~_

Tatiana swallowed hard; she didn’t know what vexed her more—the voice’s whisper-soft condescension or that it had resurfaced so soon. The bouts were usually a couple of weeks apart at this point. Reining Gideon in alongside the porch, she schooled her face into a friendly mask. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“We can only hope,” said the one with a longsword on his hip. “Have you passed another orc on the road? Our brother was due back some time ago and has yet to return.”

“A big bastard with a war maul. You can’t miss him,” one of his fellows pitched in, licking the ale froth from his lip. 

The abrupt break in formality amused her, but she didn’t let it show. Watching at the innkeeper hurrying out to snuff the lantern swinging from the end of the porch, she shook her head. “I haven’t seen a soul since I left the city. Sorry, gents.”

“Ah, well. He’ll return soon, I am sure. He always does.” The other three nodded and exchanged looks of agreement. 

“Hopefully before the rain. Shockingly, I don’t think this one will blow over.” She patted Gideon’s neck, gathered her reins, and smiled. “When you see him, give him my regards. Watch the road when you leave, too. There’re some nasty folks around here.”

_~ see? you didn’t even need to lie. the road’s empty, and no one saw a damned thing back there ~_

She had no idea the voice was wrong, and that Grandma Vestalis had been right. _Nothing_ went unseen. 


End file.
